A note to the reader

If you're reading this for the first time, go ahead and scroll down to the oldest posts and read forward to the new ones. It'll make the story make more sense, unless you're a big Benjamin Button fan. Thanks,

matt

The "Big Picture"

This entire trip I was so incredibly encouraged by people I encountered. The guys who came to help me change my tire in Burkina, the kindness and generosity of the guys at Burkina Manganese, the constant parade of kids giving me thumbs up, clapping, and screaming "RALLY!", our wonderful Dogon guide Gabriel, Miranda and Shindook, Mac, the Norwegian fellows (heaven help me remember their unique names!), the Europeans who seemed inspired by our journey, and the slew of Tuaregs and Muslims who showed me love and respect when they were the ones who were said to be those who wanted to abduct and kill me. It was an amazing time of culture, learning tons about the uniqueness of Mali. It was an amazing ride; pushing my bike and my body to it's limits, I had so much fun I lost 13lbs in 8 days and didn't even know it! I smiled countless times at the thrill of having my hands glued to the throttle. It was an amazing start of a friendship; born between JJ and I, who both come from different worlds but found unity in the challenge of adventure. And finally it was my pilgrimage. I'd left with the mission to be changed on the journey. I think I was more changed at some points than others but there's no doubt I returned different than when I left. I thought about those I love more than any other time in my life and had hours of uninterrupted time to tone out the roar of the motor and tone into the voice of God. I had someone ask me if I went just for the sake of going and I can say without a doubt "maybe." I went because I knew the trip in itself would be awesome but I pushed everyday to be changed, to reflect, and to repent. I found joy in telling people what I do and realized how much I love my wife, job, and teammates here. I even found greater joy than ever in sharing my faith. So for you skeptics I'll tell you "no, I didn't go just to go" but for all you guys who've ever ridden until your strength gave out, you'll understand the other part of the story others will never be able to understand. So that's it, Togo to Timbuktu is over but I doubt adventure riding is.

Day 9, November 3: Ouagadougou to Kara

We pulled out at 6 a.m. and made good time back. We stopped and got cokes again in Tenkodogo but this time had to adjust my chain out a notch. The bike was still consuming a little oil, but I was glad to be almost home. By this time sores that had began to appear on my leg/butt on day three were almost unbearable. They had turned into blood blisters by day 5, which I popped and were now unbearably painful, 3", open sores. I struggled to shift my body off them but we made it in one piece to the border by 11 a.m. The Burkina guys laughed that we'd made it back and I reassured them there weren't any bandits like they'd warned us of going in. None of them had ever even been as North as Ouagadougou but they'd been sure of the banditry because of the television. At this point I began to need stops at about every 50 miles because of the pain. We stopped 50 miles south of Daapong and I pretended to need to pee so I didn't look like a wuss. Two guys came up to look at my bike while I was peeing and I came up staring at them. JJ said I had this dazed look on my face and he thought I was angry (really my butt just hurt incrediby) so I began to pretend not to speak french and mimicked my butt agony out to them. They got a good laugh and so did I! We made it as far as Kante but when I pulled off my helmet my face was white and covered in sweat. It'd turned to agony. I took a 10 minute breather and decided to take off my backpack and strap it to my bag on the bike. That helped enormously (not sure why) and we made it no stops the remaining 60k to the house. Oh, I almost got taken out by some guy in Kara who made a no-look, across the lane, left turn. I thought about how ironic it'd been to be taken out after 2,000 miles in my hometown. Seeing Grace at the gate was amazing and my dog Penny nearly killed herself with excitement. Grace had cleaned and organized the entire house, done yard work, and really worked hard while I was gone. Seeing her was good enough, but how great the place looked really made coming home a wonderful thing. JJ came over that evening and we swapped pictures and had coffee and that was it. The trip was over. I had the runs that entire night and had to drain what were now cysts on my backside but my trip of a lifetime had been completed, in amazing style, and I was a better man for it.

Day 8, November 2: San to Ouagadougou

No pictures for this day...it was awful. We left at 6 a.m and headed South toward Bobo Dioulasso. The road made a "y" at one point and we asked the gendarmes where to go. They said straight was 80km and rough while right was 80k and smooth. Easy decision! We thanked them and headed off. My gps was on the fritz and after about 20 minutes I got it to kick back on, showing that the turn right wasn't the same, actually it made the route 190k instead of 80k. Again, dodging the rough road cost us big time We arrived at the Mali border around 10:30a.m and got across into Burkina after some confusion at the border. Of course nothing is marked and no one helps. In Burkina for some twist of fate the two guys were type - a and anal, one guy twisting his face at the dirt from my hand that'd gotten on the form. He took it from me and attempted to wipe it off, to no avail. He didn't know i'd been using my glove (still on) to wipe the dipstick off all week :). We got asked 80 questions and when asked if i'd ever served in the military I told them that I was a private assassin, not government. They shrugged and checked no, letting us pass on into Burkina. It took us about 2 hours to get to Bobo, which was under heavy construction. The asphalt had been torn up and the road was very dusty. I loved it. We gassed up and asked where we could find a supermarket. The guy didn't know but directed us to a bigger Shell station with a "Shell Shop." It was on the way but the roundpoint where we needed to turn was blocked off, blocking the Shell station off too. We zigged and zagged down some alleys and ended back on the main road, doubling back in search of our cold cokes. When we got to the roundpoint (blocked off on that end too) I'd failed to notice that bikes were going up the wrong land of traffic, forming a two lane road on one lane of asphalt. I saw my error and jumped the 10" curb, putting me in traffic and on my way to the Shell. JJ tried to follow but crawled really slowly up onto the curb (i think it was his first time), I waved to come on, but he went so slow he ended up with both wheels off the ground. I'm sure he thought it was my fault! I got a good look, got off my bike to help but by the time i'd gotten there two Africans had helped him over. We bought two big cokes at the Shell and enjoyed our K-Cliff bars for lunch. Neither of us finished our 1.5 liter cokes (surprise) so we gave them to the street kids that had come up to stare at us.

The road from Bobo to Ouaga was long, really long. Ok, it was only 360km but after having already ridden 7 hours, the 4 that were left seemed like eternity. The ride was uneventful, other than being forced off the road by an 18 wheeler and we made it back to Burkina Manganese around 5:30 pm. We'd ridden nearly 12 hours all to avoid a dirt road that'd put us there at 2... The guys at Burk. Manganese were kind as usual and took us out for drinks again. We talked to Ron until about 8:00 and then headed to eat at a local restaurant called Espace Gondwana, which is a sand-floored outdoor/indoor restaurant that feels like it's Moroccan themed. The atmosphere is really unique and calming and both our meals were amazing. We called it a night and went back to sleep at around 10 pm with a 6 a.m. departure the next day.

Day 7, November 1: Djenne

The drive to Djenne was pretty straight forward until you have to find the turn, which is unmarked. Luckily my GPS was working at the moment (it didn't always cooperate) so I saw the road on the Africa base map and turned in. There were roadblock barrells there and a guy said we had to pay the $2 tourist tax each. I wondered how true that tax was. We pulled forward and quickly began to pass vans of tourists, a rare site in West Africa. As we got close to the ferry the road turned to mud, which I loved, so I jumped through some mud-puddles and jumped the line to the front of the ferry. We got lots of attention from the guys there and even the europeans who were eager to hear about our voyage. JJ got off his bike but I stayed on since it kept sinking in the mud and let the locals ask all the questions about the gps, top speed, tires, etc. The ferry guys were being real jerks and ended up holding us from getting on until all the cars loaded, which didn't leave room for our bikes so we ended up holding the breaks the whole way with our rear tires hanging halfway off. Getting off the ferry I noticed that on my side of the boat the car's drivers tires were dropping way down into the water. It looked like he'd come in at a bad angle. I saw this as an opportunity for fun and gassed it off the boat, plunging into three foot deep water, up the sides of my bags and gassed out of it like a kid. It was my first time driving in deep water and I loved it. We drove down the causeway and turned left into Djenne. We putted past mud buildings (the city is walled in) and got to a big market. It was market day. I took out my map to find our bearings and where we were in relation to the Campement we planned to sleep at. A guy pulled up on a moto and asked where we were staying, told me we had to go around and back out of the city to get there. I told him it looked closer and he asked if we needed a guide. I told him "no thanks" and headed toward the market, the opposite direction of where he'd indicated. This guy then perceded to chase us, yelling at us that we couldn't go that way. He gassed up next to us then I heard his motor rev one more time and I hit the brakes to turn around and let him have it. He was gone. I suppose it's best not to throw a man in the middle of market day when you're a 6'3", 300lb white man in an African town so i'm thankful he wasn't there. We pulled forward and realized we couldn't find the camp so we headed back out following the guys first directions. Turns out they were totally false, he just wanted us to get lost so we'd ask him to be our guide. We asked around and finally found the road to Campement Chez Baba, where we'd agreed to meet the guys for lunch. We decided it'd be just as good to stay there and talked to the owner, Mr. Baba about the following day's routes. JJ was concerned about another gravel road and wasn't impressed with Djenne. I was however and love gravel roads but somehow knew i'd end up cutting my visit to Djenne short. We walked through the market and then went up on the roof of a house next to the Mosque so we could take pictures. It's an impressive building really. We walked around and then found the Campement, the original place we'd been looking for. We decided to go in for a coke and were blown away at the number of white Europeans sitting outside at the restaurant. I sat down, feeling a little like i'd left the planet, and i'm sure stared at a good number of them awkwardly. There was a french family we'd seen the night before who we greeted and we finished our cokes feeling "blended in the crowd" for once instead of the usual life of outsiders.

We walked back to Chez Baba's for lunch, where we'd already put in our orders, and were delighted to see our new friends walk in. We had chicken and fries which was good, and chatted with the guys about their travel preferences. One was like me, who likes to soak in places, taking time to feel a places energy and meet uncommon people while the other was like JJ who likes to snap a photo, stamp a passport, and move on. I thought it was funny listening to them argue when JJ and I had been doing the same thing the whole trip. They bought us lunch and we said goodbyes. JJ and I walked to the bikes and started talking about whether we should leave or not that day, since we found out the ferry sometimes doesn't leave until 8 a.m. We were worried that'd set us back so we talked to the hotel guys again and before it was over i'd agreed to leave right then, head to San, and take paved roads through Bobo-Dioulosso all the way to Ouagadougou. If i'd only know. I think the dirt roads had beat the BMW and JJ up to the point that he had a bit of an irrational fear of them, but that was part of the partnership of the trip together and I kept reminding myself he'd saved my ankle. We geared up, thanked Baba for letting us lock our stuff in the room for the day, and pulled out catching the ferry as soon as we arrived. We were better positioned this time but I was pretty bummed about not being able to soak in Djenne, which had a unique energy of it's own. I'd loved to have sipped coffee and watched people leave the market to go home. It'd been beautiful at sunset. We tore up the asphalt and got to the turn which i'd planned earlier on in the trip. The city was Tominam and although the road was paved on the Mali side the police said it'd be dirt in Burkina. I could tell JJ didn't want to make the ride so we rode on to San, an odd city with a huge stadium close to the Niger river. We stopped for gas and asked the gas guy if there was a campement in town. He said there was and that we should follow the main road until the next round point with a shell station and take a left. About 5 miles later the paved road, mind you the only paved road, turned into a market. People had tables set up on the road, beach umbrellas on stands and tons of pedestrians browsing the local produce. I turned and looked at JJ and shrugged, thinking what the heck. So I began crawling forward on my bike and eased under umbrellas, past tables, and gently passed people. Everyone stayed in a good mood about it (which isn't guaranteed) and after a few minutes we'd come out at our roundpoint. The campement turned out to be run down buildings with no electricity. Like a 1/3 the way finished guesthouse they were calling a camp to make some money. We decided to turn back toward the road for the next day and check out two hotels we'd passed on the way in. This time we found a way to take back roads circumventing the market. We stopped at Hotel Teriya and they had a double "room" with a fan and bathroom for $25. We took it and hit the bar for cokes and water. By this point I really enjoyed talking with JJ, despite how differently we tended to think. I really felt like we'd taken care of each other this trip and sacrifices made me enjoy getting to know him. We crashed at 8:30 and looked at the next day's route....over 800km and a border crossing...we'd better get some rest.

Day 6, Oct 31: to Sevare

We pulled out at 5 a.m. as planned and drove in the dark out of town. It was kind of eery driving in the dark, since I hardly ever do it since i've moved to africa. At one point the road did a "y" and I took the wrong direction but after several minutes realized what had happened. By 5:40 we'd pulled up at the ferry dock, weaving through a 20 car line that had obviously been there for hours. I arrived first and got yelled at by a truck driver who said I should go to the back of the line. This was absurd, since all pedestrians and motorcycles always jumped the line since they could squeeze in beside the cars. I decided that because of the heated tones these guys were giving me i'd get off there and walk the rest of the way to ask the ferry pilot. He said "no problem" so we zig-zagged the rest of the way to the front. When the ferry guy gave the signal we boarded the big ferry and got turned around, all the other cars, however, started getting on the smaller ferry. We watched 4 cars squeeze on, cranked the motors, and made a dash to get on the smaller boat. There just was enough room but that decision saved us 30 minutes because the larger boat took forever to get loaded and to pull out. The sunrise on the ferry was beautiful and before we knew it we were on the other side. We got off the boat quickly and soon the trucks were blocked by a big lorry who'd broken down on the causeway. We pulled around him and as we were hitting the straight road South I decided i'd better stop and soak in what had happened on the ride up. Just to soak in the fact that i'd done it and from here on it was the ride home. I took my helmet off and reflected a few minutes, thanking God for where I was, took one last look at the water and got ready for the awesome ride out. I was passing JJ in no time and decide to ride about 10-15 miles this time (from the point I passed him) without stopping. I figured at that speed no fall could do too much damage :). The larger distance gave me more time off the bike to wait so I talked to more Tuareg and got to see them draw water up from a well with camels. The squeal of their wooden pulleys as the sheep-skin-bag was pulled up out of the 100 foot well was a unique sound. Being in the water "business" I enjoyed seeing how they'd adapted to the difficulty of deep hand dug wells. The next stop I got off the bike and sat on the ground on the right side, letting the bike made shade for me from the morning sun, and enjoyed just watching the nothingness aside the road. Little by little, though, JJ began to pick up speed and before I knew it my 15 minute waits had turned to 5-6 minutes as he began to get in the groove. I felt like a coach seeing his rookie player hit a home run! This made things go faster and before we knew it we'd passed half way and were on our way to Douentza. We made it to Douentza this time at 11:30 a.m (which was much better than the previous 4p.m arrival!) and went to a campement to get some cold water and eat our K-Cliff lunch. (For all you XR650L guys reading this, with the road in it's current state you could easily make it in 3 hours, maybe 2.5 hours if you really pushed it). We pulled out of Douentza and made the run back to Sevare (stopping once to rest under a thorn tree) and arrived there around 3 p.m (driving at 100kmh you can make it in 2 hours). We drove around trying to find gasoline and then tried to find Mac's Refuge based on my guidebook map. I went toward Mopti and turned at the watertower just like the map showed, except that road was essentially a line of giant puddles and thorn tree limbs. We zigged and zagged until finally coming upon a man pulling out on his motorcycle. He said he knew where it was and would lead us there. It was funny struggling to keep up with him as he masterfully zigged and zagged past water and thorn branches on his Yamaha Mate 50. It wasn't the first time we'd been embarrassed by the pace of an African on a tiny bike! We arrived at Mac's and decided to get a shared room with a fan ($12 with breakfast) and signed up for Mac's famous dinner. That night was Indian Night. Mac is the son of missionaries to Mali and was a missionary himself for some time and now runs a guesthouse in Sevare. He's a food fanatic and makes some of the best food you'll ever find in West Africa. Eating is family style, with Mac at the head of the table, and he runs an efficient table. We all had more food than we could handle. It just so happened that there were two Norwegian guys staying the night too, doing a Dogon tour before heading to Douentza to meet an older friend of theirs. Our guide from Dogon land was there with them so I caught him up on the trip we'd had and introduced myself to them. They were early 30's, extremely successful, and came from a culture maybe more materialistic than even my own. It's not that they were that way, it's just that in talking I realized they wrestled with so many of the same things i've wrestled with because of our impoverished atmosphere here. It was one of the guys first time to travel to the third-world while the other had done extensive travel in impoverished Asia. He did this for his vacations and was part of his volunteer work with the Lions Club. Both guys have great hearts and I really enjoyed our evening conversations with them. We finished dinner and talked to Mac about the route to Djenne and found out the Norwegians were going the next day too. So we set a rendezvous at Chez Baba for lunch and crashed for the night.

Day 5, Oct 30: Timbuktu

We started out to explore Timbuktu at around 7 a.m, which was foolish since everything stayed closed until around 9:30 a.m. It was nice to ride the bikes "naked", the bikes being naked not us or course. By 9:30 we'd pretty much cruised the entire place, every alley, and it was getting hot. We stopped at Hotel Columbe (there's three of them there) to get cold water and got to talk to the UNICEF director for Mali again, who was staying there. We'd talked to him the day before on the ferry (he was part of the two car group that came, letting us get on the ferry). He used to work in the Malian government and retired to work with UNICEF. I told him I was familiar with his Landcruiser, which was a new model like a former teammate used to have, and he said that while it was nice and powerful, it was difficult to pull into the villages he worked in with that vehicle. I'd never heard an African with that insight before. I'm not labeling people and am certainly not racist, but that pulling away of the "chief" mentality really made an impression.

We'd seen the Grand Marche, which actually isn't so Grand, the Sankore Mosque north of the Grand Marche (which was build in the 16th century and was one of the largest schools of Arabic learning in the Muslim world with some 25,000 students), and decided to herad to the Dyingerey Ber Moque. This mosque was just restored to resemble the large mosque in Djenne, with a smooth sand/mud/cement finish. We paid 500fcfa to climb up on the roof of the Biblotheque Al-Imam Essayouti to see it from the top since we couldn't go inside. Downstairs we got to go inside and see some of the 4,000 manuscripts present there. The guide was really well informed and since i've studied Islam quite a bit, the discussion and history of the manuscripts was fascinating. Some were of the Quran, some commentaries of the Quran, some the Hadith, some about math, others about astrology, and others about civil laws. I had a great time seeing and learning about the restoration process and how they've found so many of these ancient documents. On our way out we decided to go to a local museum that was around the corner, the Musee Almansur Korey (sidi.omar.toure@hotmail.fr), which was loaded with rooms of old timbuktu artifacts. The museum is actually a house that's been kept in it's original condition and conatains artifacts pertaining to each room (which served different purposes and was for different genders/social classes). We spent a good hour looking over and learning about things there. We walked to Gordon Laing's house (the first European to reach Timbuktu), then to Rene Caillie's house (the first to make it to Timbuktu and live to tell the tale), and then finally to Heinrich Barth's house (who made a 5 year trip from Tripoli across the Sahara). From there we went back to Sahara Passion to get my passport and then went back to Hotel Colombe for lunch. I had beef, red sauce and rice there. It was around $7 and pretty good for African cuisine. We left Hotel Colombe to go to the tourist office to get our passport's stamped to say we were in Timbuktu, ended up going to the guy's house to get him and then got our stamps. From there we decided to ride to the post office so I could mail some postcards but the post office was closed on Saturday. As we learned, this was no problem in Timbuktu. I simply went to the director of the post office's house, told him what i needed, and we went back to the post office, bought stamps, dropped the post cards and parted ways. It'd been the same way with the Almansur Korey museum. We decided to go and fill up and then went back to Sahara Passion for the evening. The sun was setting and I went out to sit in a Tuareg tent with three guys I'd met the day before. We were talking and in no time they were pulling our balls of fabric containing Tuareg items for sale. An old Tuareg pipe caught my eye so I got it for $10. An older Tuareg man wanted me to go to his house to see "desert roses" he'd collected over the years, which I did. I have to say being so far out at dusk was a bit unnerving, but a young guy who was related to Shindook (Miranda's husband) was with me so I felt ok. We talked for a while and I think he finally realized that I was actually poor so he let me go and thanked me for the visit. Walking back across the dunes at dusk, with the call to prayer sounding out across the city was a beautiful scene. As I approached the city there were lines of men on the dunes bowing down in worship, it certainly put a more beautiful image of Islamic prayer and people that i'd had before. I came back to S.P. and ate a K-Cliff bar and some beef jerky and talked about wake up for the following day. Apparently the ferry would pull out at 6 a.m. but some people arrived at 3:30a.m. to get in line. We decided to pull out of the hotel at 5 a.m. (about 30 minute drive to the ferry) so we set our alarms for 4:30 a.m., i sprayed my head and neck with 100% deet and put the earphones in and slept like a baby.

Day 4, October 29: To Timbuktu

The ride from Douentza to Timbuktu was one of the most euphoric moments of my life. The XR650 was made for that road, and I was made to ride it. Minutes after taking the road we were driving by two enormous towers of rock. I mean enormous. The harmatton had brought dust in and the sun rising behind those megaliths was amazingly beautiful. After about 20k the packed road turned to pretty crazy washboard. I tried to hang back with the BMW but lets just say I was about to lose teeth. Driving on washboard means driving fast so that your wheels skim over the tops. So at 30mph my fender was banging the wheel but at 60mph it was like driving on silk. Doubling JJ's speed meant that in order to keep the mutual understanding of "sticking together" I needed to wait for him to catch up every couple minutes. For every 5 miles I went, I was almost 3 miles ahead so I had lots of time to stop and enjoy the scenery. About half way we stopped at a small town called Bambara Maounde. When I pulled up people started clapping and congratulating me for being first in from the Rally. They asked how far back the other riders were. I thought "wow, word really got around that we were coming." It turns out that the next week a rally was coming through and because I came flying in on my big bike they just assumed they had the dates wrong! Really nice folks there though, had a great time showing them the bike and talking to them about the trip we'd made. I bought two liters of gas sold in glass bottles...and a hot coke for $1.50. JJ caught up after 5 minutes or so and we took a break, happy to be half way there. Apparently in January-Feburary elephants come there to find water in the ponds surrounding the city. Right after being told that they didn't come until January a guy tried to get me to hire him as a guide to go see the elephants...some how I don't think that would have worked out to my favor. This was our first encounter with people on the Timbuktu road, which everyone warned us would be the "bandit road." Everyone was absolutely pleasant. We asked about risks North of there and everyone said that there were no problems. Driving past water in Northern Mali is like entering an air conditioned room. It was 100 degrees in the shade, really, so out in the sun, on the roads, on the bikes, with jackets on was super hot. Driving beside water usually meant driving by trees which meant shade, humidity, and what felt like a 10 degree temperature drop. It was nice while it lasted! Pretty quickly though the road turned to washboard and pockets of sand, big pockets of sand. I learned this by accident, swallowing my tongue as I hit one on the down side of a hill going 60mph. To my surprise, I just shot right over it. Even deep, 8 inch pockets, brought some steering wobble, but as long as I got to my feet the bike just dug in and shot right through it. I was having the ride of my life. The rythmn of driving 5 miles and stopping was pretty tiring, and to be honest, frustrating, but I had the fresh memory of almost having my ankle snapped off from the day before to remind me to wait. I had the timing pretty worked out, so I knew if he didn't top a hill in a couple minutes I needed to double back. I was learning a big lesson about patience and the need to let people do things at their own pace. I think JJ did great. A few times I stopped in Tuareg villages, bought biscuits from roadside shacks and shared them with men there, one time finding some amazing tasting caramels at a little hut. I stopped once to watch camels kissing, which is pretty funny and at other times just to enjoy the vastness of the place. I think I stopped over 30 times that day. After about 100 miles the road turned into a causeway, surrounded by the water of the Niger river, I was so blown away at arriving that I almost slid into the river at a hard 90 degree sand that had big banks of sand. No worries though, I had it down by then. Break hard before you hit it and throttle hard once you're in it! The causeway was about 1/2 mile in length before dead ending at the ferry junction. There were tons of tuareg houses there, some women frying fish, some others selling "cookies", and one with a freezer hooked up to a solar panel! I'll take a cold coke for $2 and a bottle of water for $2! I sat under a makeshift shaded place with a group of guys in a CAT owned Hilux and talked to them about the trip. I had some fun with them earlier on the road, racing them a bit through some deep sand, and got thumbs up and claps before stopping to wait on JJ. They had arrived about an hour earlier and were waiting for more vehicles so the ferry would be loaded before going across. They bought Malian tea and shared a glass as we waiting 45 minutes together before two cars finally arrived. The ferry ride should have costed $4 but instead we got taken for $9 since our bikes were "heavy." Despite the fact that huge, overloaded, Landcruisers were paying only $15. He had no respect for our "rally" I guess. There was enough room for us to park our bikes beside cars on the ferry, but just barely. I sat in the shade created by a landcruiser next to JJ and we admired the dust we'd collected on our boots from the ride. There's an old Jewish saying that says "you're blessed by the dust on your feet from following your rabbi." I thought about the things God had been teaching me leading up to and on this trip about my self and felt really blessed by the dust on my feet. I pulled the pack of biscuit/cookies I'd bought down the road and offered them to a group of Tuaregs on my left (an older arab looking man, a young arab looking 20 year old, and a black Tuareg 20 year old). The young guys took one each and slowly ate at the crumbly cookies. I could tell them didn't eat things like that very often. I turned to my right and offered one to JJ and then an African lady sitting on the other side of him. She accepted with a smile. I ate my puffy, powdery, sugarless cookie and offered more to everyone else, who maybe out of politeness said they'd had enough. I pushed them a little forward at the younger arab boy who was pretty skinny, and with a smile he accepted. That young guy had asked for a ride on my bike into Timbuktu, I say he asked, he jested and I understood :). I jested back that I was fat and there wasn't room and told him sorry with sincerity. It was nice to at least give him some cookies. They ended up catching a ride in one of the trucks later. The older Tuareg man after a few minutes asked me, with jests and French words, if I had any medicine for an open wound on his ankle. I could tell he'd treated it traditionally, which means putting crushed leaves into it, and it was pretty swollen. My first reaction, shamefully, was to say no. I'm not sure why, I just did. About a second later my senses kicked in and I said "actually, I do have something that could help." I got up and dug out some packs of handi-wipes and gave it to him, telling him to clean it with these in the morning and evening. I had half a tube of neosporin, but I was hoarding it to put on the burns on my thigh. Looking back I probably should have given that to him too. That's all part of the trip I guess. Sitting there I felt like i'd just been an ambassador for whites in a tense world where whites are usually the ones exploiting or disrespecting Tuareg and/or Muslim culture. "Whatever you do to the least of these" rang in my mind and I was reminded that I had been desensitized by living in Togo for the last two years. "Small acts with great love" seemed to be truer than ever. JJ caught my attention and I stood up to go see what he was photographing, which were villages scattered beside the river, which the boat wound through, and wooden boats of fisherman. It was a beautiful place. Soon we were insight of the other shore and people began cranking their cars, so I geared up, said goodbye to my new friends and started the bike. Finding where to go off the ferry just meant following the other cars and soon enough we were on asphalt. It was paved all the way into Timbuktu and i'm not going to lie, felt nice. We stopped at a Total station, gassed up, and headed into town. We were staying at Sahara Passion, ran by Miranda Dodd and her husband Shindook, a Tuareg salt trader. I had called her before boarding the ferry to ask about the price and to doublecheck that we had a place to stay. She was very kind on the phone and had helped a lot with planning the "to Timbuktu" leg of our trip from Dogonland, warning us about over fatigue from trying to make it in one day from Sevare/Mopti. The directions to Sahara Passion were pretty straightforward, even if Timbuktu's roads weren't, take a left at the first roundpoint, stay straight on pavement only until it dead ends (which meant driving over a downed powerline!), then right at the monument "Flamme de la paix". I called her from the monument and Shindook quickly went up to the third story overlook, waving at me in his bright blue Tuareg robe, signaling where to go. It's about 1/4 mile of deep sand, which I at first drove to slow in, wobbled a lot, but made it. I pulled the bike inside their compound but the kickstand sunk straight into the sand, which was abundant in their yard, so Abraham, a young black Tuareg, dug out a big hole and placed a rock for me to put my kickstand on. Inside their compound there is a traditional Tuareg home/shack where Shindooks family stays while in town and their house has a dormatory, individual rooms, and an upstairs where you can tent camp. We knew tourism had been awful that year so we opted for the more expensive dormatory to help them with some cash. Even then, the cost was only $12 a piece for a bed and shower, a place to secure our things, and a light for after hours. Conversations started with Miranda quickly and Shindook motioned for us to eat some rice they'd prepared for us. We sat at the table together in the courtyard and before we knew it were talking religion, politics, and how Miranda had transitioned from Peace Corps in Mauritania to married life in Timbuktu. They are a delightful family. JJ and I decided to go out onto one of the dunes near Sahara Passion and were accompanied by the two young guys who frequent their place. On top of the dune was beautiful, overlooking Tuareg tents back toward the city, camels coming in from the desert, and the sun dipping low over the vast, Sahara horizon. We headed back at sunset, discussed the next days plans and Timbuktu map with Miranda before heading to bed. It was hot in the room so we left the door and windows open to cool the place off, which it did. There was a pretty constant breeze coming from the North. I had a hard time sleeping because of the noise the dung beetles, which are huge, were making. They crawled up and over the threshold, got into everything, and made horrific noise scraping around trying to get back out of whatever they'd fallen into. They are harmless but gross. Around midnight mosquitos came in the room abundantly. I put my 100% deet bug spray on my head, neck, and sides of my face (since the rest of me was under the sheet) and put my earphones in. The good vibes of my favorite playlist helped sooth me from an intense day and I rested well until the morning.

Day 3, Thursday Oct 28

We hit the Bankass Tele road and decided to ride up the Falaise du Bandiagara (cliffs) before going to see the Dogon Villages. Really, since I decide to do this trip a year ago, riding my bike on that road was sure to be a highlight. The road has a pretty steep grade, goes from cement to gravel, to sand, and back again. It twists upward, exposing streams that turn into waterfalls, dogon villages tucked away in the distance, and an amazing view over the plains. Arriving at the top just after sunrise literally moved me in an amazing way. As I sat there on the bike the whole thing took my breath away and I thanked God for getting me to this point. I leaned over and told JJ that if we left now it'd all been worth it. I'm pretty sure he wasn't impressed but I sure was. I soaked it in for a minute and then fired the bike up and headed down the cliffs. Enjoying every turn, shutting the bike off sometimes just to hear how quite it really was. We got down off the escarpament and turned left to go to the Dogon village Tele. The road was quite sandy, so I hit the throttle and plowed on. Turning toward the waterfall, which was now just a trickle, the sand got over 12" deep so I turned the wheel hard and gassed it, letting the front wheel break the bike and the back spin the bike around. I got it turned around just in time to see JJ slow-motion fall to the ground. His first time in sand. I helped him get the bike up and turned it around for him and we then drove to the small campement on the left side of the road to get a cold coke (pictured). We found a guide, well better said a guide found us quickly, and I chatted with him to see what he was like. Turns out Gabriel Guindo, an accomplished guide who guided for President Bush when he came to Mali years ago, spoke several languages fluently and was a perfect match. If you're going to Dogon land, email him at guindo_gabriel@yahoo.fr . Gabriel took us up into the village and even though it was my second time there, I enjoyed it just the same. We got a lot of attention there for the bikes and I enjoyed showing people the different "toys" I had for the trip. Everyone said we'd be able to take the donkey path along the villages on the bikes so we headed out around 10 a.m. to tackle the cliff road.

The cliffs were amazingly beautiful after passing the village of Ende. Huge towers of rock shot up off the cliffs, sometimes as towers, other times as mushrooms, but every time amazing. The road was tough, even for me, and JJ was really showing some fortitude by sticking in with it. About 1 1/2 hours into the ride the sand started getting really deep. Up to this point i'd been able to throttle through it, staying stood up in second gear. I got up some speed but stayed seated instead of standing up. The sand got deep, the front wheel started plowing and pulling to the left and as I felt myself starting to fall I put my foot down to try to stand up off it and let it go. Unfortunately, my saddle bags were fat and instead of letting me step off the bike the bag grabbed my leg and as the bike lurched forward my foot, pinned against the embankment and bike, was forced to turn backward as the bike threw me to the ground. I didn't realize any of this until I tried to get up, sensing the agony from my ankle. My hips and right leg are facing forward but my left leg is turned and my foot is facing backwards. The other problem was that because the bike was so much on top of me my right thigh was getting burned badly on the motor. When I lifted it up the weight went to my ankle so I had to shift back and forth between the two. My chest was pressed against the imbankment and while usually i've got ample strength for any task, i was useless. I knew JJ would be behind me but I wasn't sure how far. Some time later, maybe 5-10 minutes later, I could hear his bike so I started screaming. By now the pain was making me go crazy and although up to this point I'd controlled my breathing, seeing him rounding the corner made me lose it. The only problem was that he hadn't seen me yet. So he crawled down the ditch and back up, rolling slowly, until finally he saw and hear my screaming. JJ dropped his bike and on his second time got the weight off my ankle, allowing me to free myself. He thought it was broken by looking at it, and to be honest, so did I. Somehow though, everything was sore, but nothing severly hurt. The burns blistered on my thigh but I had my Adventure Travel Kit with burn care so I treated it, covered it, and within 3 days the pain was gone. For the day my ankle really didn't even bother me, even though it hurt like crazy that night.

We pressed on for another 3/4 mile but soon JJ buried his bike in sand, we dug it out, talked with a local who said it only got worse from there and I belatedly agreed to turn around and go back. This Dogon route was to be an epic part of the trip, going where few had gone, but with my injury and the inadequacy of the BMW FS650 to perform off road, we decided we had to turn back. I called Grace to tell her what happened and eerily Grace had sensed it just minutes after it happened and had been in prayer since the accident. We talked with some guides about routes, one of which would have run the top of the cliffs and then dropped down off of them, JJ had experienced enough off roading for the day.

The decision to take the tarmac meant 300km to do with the sun on it's way down. We decided to push forward to try to shave one of the days off for JJ so we road hard from Bandiagara to Sevare and then to Doentza that afternoon. We gassed up in Bandiagara at the station next to the White Horse Hotel and a guy tried to sell me drugs. This guy was pretty distracting, my leg hurt, and JJ then knocked a scooter over with his bike. While all this was going on I got my gas and pulled forward to catch my head. I'd left my backpack, which the dearler brought to me, and then JJ noticed the Ching Shen tire i'd strapped on the back was being ruined by hitting the new kenda when i hit bumps. It had plenty of clearance when I wasn't on it, but my weight and the bumps had nearly cut through the side wall. I saw an old man on a Yamaha 125 at the station with the same size rim and ran it over to him, much to his appreciation. It was good to see him drive off with it, smiling with his prize. Even though it'd never handled the punishment to come, for him it'll probably serve a year or more. The road from Bandiagara to Doentza was great, amazing views and rock formations and a steady hot wind. The guys at the gas station said it was 120k to Doentza, it ended up being over 200km. The road was mostly good, but about 50k to Doentza the road breaks down into tons of potholes. As you approach the city the cliffs get closer on the right and two amazing towers of rock cover the horizon on the left where the road turns to Timbuktu. We got there at 5:30pm and tried to go to Chez Jerome, which was closed. Apparently he's been in France for the last year settling some legal matter. We headed up the road to Campement Hogon. This camp was pretty dingy, but they let us camp on the roof. I cooked dinner on the camp stove, set up tents, and took a shower in the incredibly hot bathroom downstairs. To be honest, I was quite wiped out and my ankle began to swell and shoot pain when I put weight on it. It didn't matter though because we were there, 1/2 a mile from the Timbuktu road. A good nights sleep and a 5:30 a.m wake up the next day.

Wednesday Day 2, Oc 27

Ouagadougou to Bankass:

We got out of Burkina Mag. at around 6:15 a.m., which was nice because traffic was light. We found the National Road 2 and made our way a little out of town and stopped to gas up. I checked my oil just to make sure (I promised myself to give the bike a go-over everyday) and couldn't believe that it was a quart low. XR650's are tricky for oil checking, they have to be warmed up and checked sitting upright, not on their stands, so I checked it again and found the same results. All the trips I've taken on the bike in Togo have been short 100-300 mile trips and i've rarely ridden over 100kmh. Yesterday we rode 350 miles, and a 100 of it at high speeds. I took of the smog kit from the bike and think maybe the oil is being blown out through the crankcase breather or something like that. Nothing really I can do about it now, other than keep watching it. No smoke-no problem...right? I bought a bottle of oil for a spare and as I got on the bike JJ said I should take a look at my tire. If you've been keeping up with the posts, I'd been rather proud of my $25 Ching Shen tires that've worked fine putting around town and to villages. Apparently, however, going high speeds over blazing hot asphalt is not there thing. It had completely thrown two nobbies and was significantly cracked at others. We discussed for a minute whether to head north and find a used one or try to find something in town, knowing that if I was wrong we'd lose the trip. The problem was that even though I'd been planning the trip for months, and telling JJ about it and that it'd be 10 days, he was thinking 10 days for him, meaning he'd come up a half day to Kara on day 1 and then a half day down on day 10. I wished he'd read the schedule better... So, if we lost a day finding a tire that meant I didn't see Djenne, if I pushed on and lost the tire we could lose the whole trip. I decided to go back into Ouaga to see what we could find. By accident we ended up at a dead end street which had a "Honda" dealership next to it. Two guys were sitting outside it, looking like they might work there, so they told me that while they didn't have the tires they had a second shop that did. The older guy hopped on his bike and biked us down some alleys to a typical street side motorcycle-stuff shack. The ones there were used and in bad shape and finally the owner of several of these shacks showed up and presented us with a Ching Shen, and several other Chinese tires. I thought it'd be better to go to the Toyota dealership where they sell Yamaha bikes to see what they had. I told the old man to call a cab and tell him to lead us there and that I'd give him something for his help. He came back to say the cab would be $12...For 2 miles...I told him to remember I lived in Togo and that i'd pay $2, without asking he said "that's ok." Wonder where the other $10 would have gone huh. So we follow them through some alleys and end up at the Honda place instead of Toyota. He said he had some other people wanting to bring some for me to see. I'd had about enough at this moment and just before hauling off on the bike thought i'd go inside and ask the Honda guys what they had. It turns out that the old man didn't work there and was just hustling us, hoping to get a cut from a street side deal. He was a total lier. The Lebanese guy owning the shop however, was really cool. He called the Toyota dealer to see what they had, and then some other tire places. Turns out there's a Kenda dealer (a taiwanese brand) who had one and was bringing it over. I had fun changing the tire with the guys in the garage there, who had actual tools, and teaching them how to get the chain adjusted on a big bike like mine. I bought a can of chain lube, thanked the guys, and by 9:30 a.m. we were back on the bikes heading toward Ouahigouya, 190k away. We stopped in Ouahigouya to use their atm, gas up the bikes, and eat our meal of the trip, Kcliff bars. It was getting hotter already but I was excited about the dirt roads to come. From Ouahigouya it's about 100km to the next "big" town, Koro Mali. The road was dirt, packed with some loose sand on the top. For my bike, it was heaven. I'll just say it once, the BMW just couldn't hack it on anything dirt so every dirt road meant half speed ahead for me. We got to Koro around 2:30pm i'd say. The border crossing was easy and quick on the Burkina side (even though we never got stamped out) but the Mali side took a good bit of time. We ended up having a great conversation with the guys on the Lassez Passez side about faith, one guy was an animist who'd read the New Testament and had great recall and the other guy was an African Jew. Of course, that led to some great talks.

The road from Koro to Bankass looked like a war zone. We filled up in Koro and while only 55km in distance, it took us 2 hours to get to Bankass. The main road was really ratted, 1 meter deep holes a meter in diameter resulted in zig-zag madness. I was able to jump down onto side roads made of thick sand but JJ really suffered. That made for lots of u-turns fearing he'd fallen and lots of waiting and watching for the headlight in the distance. After quite a battle we made it to Hotel Nommo in Bankass. The best campement there in my opinion. We unloaded the bikes, set up our tents on the roof of the buildings for $6 a piece, ordered spaghetti for dinner, and enjoyed nice showers at dusk. I don't know why, but that was probably one of my better days of riding. Just plain fun challenging riding. That evening we tried to get a guide for our next day's treck across the Dogon cliffs, taking donkey paths to Doentza. The guide that showed up had a bike but wanted $150 to guide us to Douentza. He said the roads were rough and that was a good price. Not that we wanted to rip him off, but $150 was about half of what each of us planned to spend on the entire trip. I'd already bought Tracks4Africa which had gps waypoints on it for the route so we decided just to take our chances the next day. We were out by 8:30 with a 5:30 a.m. wake up the next day.

Pictures: The gazebo where we ate at Hotel Nommo and our bikes, notice the Ching Shen strapped on the back of mine.